Podcasts

The pandemic has accelerated trends that have long been underway, including consumer adoption of mobile services. That means that credit union leaders need to shift their thinking, possibly shifting their strategy for meeting and supporting digital demand.

“In order for them to manage and go forward with their physical and digital relationships, they’re going to need to change,” Kevin Blair says in this episode of the CUES Podcast. “Nothing will be quite the same as it was before the pandemic.”

In this show, Blair, president/CEO of CUES Supplier member NewGround, says that before the pandemic, surveys showed that 60% to 70% of consumers preferred coming to the branch to do their financial business. Now, a similar proportion says they prefer to interact with their financial services provider digitally. 

“What the pandemic did was accelerated it—it pushed the industry to the tipping point,” Blair emphasizes. (Learn more in the company's new whitepaper.

Interestingly though, this doesn’t mean credit union members will never want to enter a branch. On the contrary, research Blair cites in this episode says the first thing that consumers wanted to reopen was manufacturing. The second was their financial services provider. Blair thinks this means their top priority is jobs and then after that they want to attend to their financial business.

In the show, Blair provides a host of practical suggestions for how to make sure that your credit union’s physical locations respond to consumers’ concerns about sanitation and the prevention of disease transmission. These include sneeze guards, automatic door openers and motion-activated faucets. 

Blair emphasizes in the episode that credit union leaders need to keep their organization’s long-term strategy in mind.

“This too shall pass,” he says. “It’s not forever.” Physical sites are designed and implemented with a 20 to 30-year vision. They have some flex but they aren’t something you replace two years after establishing them. 

In addition to working on their actual digital delivery systems, credit unions need to be thinking about how to staff the support for digital delivery—he says it’s not unreasonable to think that teams doing digital delivery support could double or triple in size. And that begs the question about what kind of physical space will best help employees do this work.

The show also gets into:

• The member experience center of the future
• How members are more patient with branch service than with digital delivery
• Rebalancing delivery channels going forward
• Alignment of brand, place and culture
• Resetting strategy in the wake of the pandemic 

The job of board liaisons today is multi-faceted and evolving—and it’s a good idea for organizations to foster their development, according to Julia Patrick and Michael G. Daignealt, CCD, in episode 96 of the CUES Podcast.

“It really is proving to be a pivotal position, more so than I think a lot of people realize,” says Daigneault, CEO and co-founder of CUES strategic partner for governance, Quantum Governance, Vienna, Virginia. “The primary purpose of it is often thought of to support the board and support the committee. But I think it’s also to guide them … and make governance more effective.”

That guidance may be a factor in a credit union board becoming high performing rather than mediocre.

“Michael and I share a passion for how internal leadership can really help move an organization forward,” explains Patrick, CEO/co-founder of the American Nonprofit Academy, Phoenix. “That board liaison is oftentimes the centerpiece of an effective board versus maybe a not-so-effective board.”

What are some key responsibilities of board liaisons?

“There’s a lot of issues that go from compliance to recording to all of the different things that have to be stored during official meetings,” Patrick answers. “They’re tracking things through their board portals. They’re actually navigating things that have a fiduciary responsibility as well as keeping the culture of the organization and … (supporting) communication.”

Daigneault echoes those thoughts, noting that because board liaisons are so connected to the board chair, the CEO, directors, committee chairs and committee members, they’re often good glue for holding everything together. They also provide a really important resource for the continuing education of board and committee members, he adds.

Patrick and Daigneault will co-lead Board Liaison Workshop this September. When the two led a previous CUES in-person event for board liaisons, they asked what participants most wanted to learn. The board liaisons cited such things as:

• How do we support board member engagement?
• How do we facilitate the board packets more effectively?
• How do we do the minutes right, rather than just taking down everything that is said?
• How do we help the senior team and the board shepherd the strategy process even more effectively?

Attendees also expressed a desire to continue evolving the role of board liaison.

“There is a desire for the board liaison to have a stronger voice and to be seen in the C-suite as a very important part of a successful operation and not just a clerical role,” Patrick explains in the show. “To understand that this is a trained, professional piece of someone’s job description, that’s somewhat of a new conversation.”

Daigneault adds that the job of the board liaison is “a multi-faceted role, which is morphing and evolving and becoming more professional day by day.”

The show also gets into:

• What surprises executives and board liaisons themselves about the evolving role of the board liaison
• Why board liaisons sometimes feel alone in their jobs
• The special role of board liaisons when governance is being conducted virtually
• How the Board Liaison Workshop and other CUES board liaison offerings are fostering a network of these professionals who can connect with and learn from each other
• What Daigneault and Patrick bring to their presentations at the Board Liaison Workshop—high-level perspective on strategic governance plus tools for succeeding with the nuts and bolts of&

In this episode, James Robert Lay tells the story of how the CEO of Tower Records once said that kids “would always” want to come into the stores and listen to music.

But Tower Records went out of business in 2006.

“Music was digitized,” explains Lay, the author of a new book, Banking on Digital Growth and an instructor for CUES School of Strategic Marketing, slated for September. “We went from the record to the eight-track to the cassette, to the CD, to mp3, but we’re not done yet. Because what is music now? Music is now streaming with Spotify and Pandora.”

Financial institutions are seeing a parallel shift. “What we’re seeing is the explosion of fintech and what fintech is focused on is—like music—micro niche markets, or micro problems and, for credit unions, it’s like death by a thousand cuts,” Lay explains. 

In the show, Lay gives a formal definition for digital growth as “a systematic process centered around the modern consumer journey” and notes that digital growth is built on three goals:

1. Increasing traffic to a financial brand’s website
2. Generating leads from the website traffic
3. Converting those leads into loans and deposits

“The way we have to do this is by positioning the credit union beyond the commoditized great rates and amazing service and look-alike laundry list of amazing features that every other financial brand promotes,” he emphasizes.

Lay explains that digital growth is not about mobile banking, remote deposit capture or social media—those are tactics.

“Digital growth is about acquisition,” he says.

The show also gets into:

• How the pandemic has impacted digital delivery
• How the pandemic has impacted credit unions’ digital growth strategies
• Roadblocks to digital growth
• Exiting the circle of chaos to move onto your next great opportunity
• The shift from digital delivery supporting a branch-first strategy to branches supporting a digital-first strategy
• How training and education build clarity around the digital consumer buying journey
• An update on the CUES School of Strategic Marketing

It’s OK for credit unions to be strategically planning for growth during these uncertain times, Sarah Szilagyi says during episode 94 of the CUES Podcast.

“We as humans as maybe even … as women, we tend to think when we’re in a time of needing to help people, it’s not a time to think about growth or opportunity,” explains Szilagyi, SVP/experience and chief of staff for CUES Supplier member CO-OP Financial Services, Rancho Cucamonga, California. “Actually, that’s one of the beautiful things about credit unions. Credit unions are meant to help people, that’s why we are here. But it is also OK to say, ‘There’s opportunity right now—opportunity to help people, which would lead to growth.’”

“It is a time of change, which means a time of opportunity,” she continues. “As consumer behavior shifts and needs change, what credit unions can offer members also shifts and opens up new doors. A lot of shoppers are buying online now. A good portion … are buying online in the last 10 weeks for the very first time. That alone is an opportunity to explore, that member behavior, that shift. What cards are they using? Are they protected properly, etc.? There’s an opportunity to broaden services right now and to better serve members. They go together. It’s OK.”

Szilagyi notes that the situation credit unions and their members are in right now is “all-new territory,” and totally unique from anything that’s been experienced before. Because of this, the process of strategic planning is shifting. 

“The pace of decision-making has increased drastically,” she notes. “We’re working cross-functionally more than ever to get things done. We’re looking at our members and asking, ‘What do they need?’ and really working quickly to serve those needs. We’re trying to plan and re-plan while many of us are at home watching children.”

Szilagyi notes a Gallup poll that found credit union members were hit harder than the average American with regard to the COVID experience. “Thinking about that is a credit union priority,” both in their immediate response and in longer-term planning, she says. Credit unions need to be offering “financial wellness and products that help their members be financially well, as well as digital and contactless type of products.

“Building trust is really one of the most important things a credit union can do right now,” she adds. “Being an ally will increase loyalty long term and members definitely need a financial partner right now they can trust.” 

These days, credit unions’ planning cycles are addressing immediate issues and looking forward to 2021, Szilagyi notes. To support credit unions in this effort, CO-OP Financial Services is offering its Credit Union Strategic Investment Assessment in partnership with EY through July 2.  

The show also gets into:

• How the impact of people—both employees and members—on strategic and growth planning is bigger than ever 
• Why data is an important foundation for growth
• More about the development of CO-OP Financial Services’ Credit Union Strategic Investment Assessment
• More about what a credit union receives when it does the Credit Union Strategic Investment Assessment
• Strategies for applying in the real world the results of the Credit Union Strategic Investment Assessment

Connie Miller recalls an episode of late-night TV when the house band didn’t have a drummer. The host appealed to the audience asking, “Hey, do we have any drummers in the audience?” One man raised his hand, came up on stage, played really well and so launched his career as a professional musician.
 
“I often wonder how many other drummers were in the audience that talked themselves out of raising their hand rather than stepping into an amazing opportunity,” says Miller, president/CEO of $342 million Icon Credit Union, in the Boise, Idaho, area, and author of Don’t Sabotage Your Career: 11 Power-Filled Steps to Succeed.

In this episode, Miller says her passion is helping people grow. She wrote her book at the encouragement of friends and people in her professional network who had come to her as a 22-year veteran of credit union leadership for advice on their own careers. Miller says some of the advice she gives has to do with helping people change their bad habits.

“I have seen people grow from teller to executive,” Miller explains. “I’ve also seen many employees with expertise, smarts and education but they get passed up for a promotion or other leadership responsibilities because it would be a poor decision to move them into a leadership role” because of poor behavior traits or lack of communication skills. 

In this episode, Miller describes several unconscious habits people have that can get in the way of career growth. Here are just two of them:

They’re not fully committed to the organization’s mission. Instead, people who want to grow their careers need to live and breathe what the company stands for. “Unless it is something that is unethical, illegal or immoral,” she says, “you have an obligation to your company to both fulfill its mission and truly be in alignment with your supervisor or your board. When employees try to dig their heels in … because of their personal preferences, it doesn’t bode well in building trust with the leadership and building your career. I am talking about trying to reach the North Star, the same ‘why’ as your leadership. It really sabotages yourself when you’re not striving to be in alignment.”

They avoid difficult but needed conversations. “When you can … build your leadership mantra of creating a culture of open communication, it truly does build trust and accountable teams,” she explains in the show. “And you become very respected, however, most people avoid this. Those same people will the ones who pair off with another employee and gossip. What they don’t realize is that it really hurts their personal brand and it really breaks down trust. You will make a terrible supervisor if you don’t have the courage to talk to your employees about how they can grow.”

The show also gets into:

• Miller’s career growth in the credit union industry
• How the pandemic has shown people how resilient they can be
• The value of reflection for leaders—and prospective book authors
• Tips to help organizational leaders think of you when considering who to choose for a promotion